Meta Description: Join the Ad Navseam Podcast in Episode 109 as the hosts dissect Aeneid Book 8. Explore the violent myth of Hercules and Cacus, the Latin supine, a comparison of epic shields, and resources to master the Latin language.
Introduction: Non-Shout Outs and Cinematic Explosions
Welcome back, classical gourmands, to Episode 109 of the Ad Navseam Podcast! Broadcasting directly from the subterranean depths of the bunker, the microphones are hot for another robust exploration of Vergil’s epic poetry.
Opening the episode, a quick glance at the podcast analytics reveals that listener numbers are officially up, prompting a humorous debate about whether the hosts should artificially inflate the statistics like undergraduate grades. Ultimately, a “non-shout out” is dedicated to the shy, introverted listeners who prefer to remain comfortably anonymous rather than submitting their names to the mailbag.
With the start of a new university semester, academic energy levels are running high. Classes covering Classical Mythology, World Religions, and American Cinema Genres are well underway. Jeff’s cinema students are currently analyzing Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan, meaning the harrowing, unmatched D-Day landing sequence is loudly echoing through the walls to the absolute dismay of neighboring professors.
Hercules, Cacus, and the Cost of Empire
The primary academic focus of Episode 109 resumes the textual dissection of the second half of Aeneid Book 8. The narrative picks up with King Evander hosting Aeneas in the rustic settlement of Arcadia, guiding the Trojan hero through the local Italian geography where the mighty Hercules previously slayed the fire-breathing monster Cacus.
The battle between the hero and the monster is intensely violent. When Cacus attempts to hide stolen cattle by dragging them backward into his cave by their tails, his clever ruse is ruined when one of the trapped heifers bellows. Enraged, Hercules literally rips the rocky roof off the mountain and strangles the beast to death—an action humorously compared to popping the top off a muffin in a classic Seinfeld episode. Interestingly, early Christian apologists frequently claimed that Greco-Roman myths were entirely derivative of scripture, pointing to the obvious archetypal similarities between the brawny Hercules and the biblical strongman Samson.
An article by scholar David Quint introduces a fascinating, albeit highly controversial, layer of complexity to this mythic detour. Quint highlights that Hercules carries a messy backstory: prior to arriving in Italy, the demigod killed Eryx, a son of Venus and therefore Aeneas’s half-brother. Furthermore, the monster Cacus is technically a son of Vulcan, establishing another awkward familial tie. Quint argues that Vergil purposefully includes these fratricidal details to subtly criticize the Augustan regime, suggesting that Roman readers would equate Augustus to Hercules while mourning their own relatives lost in the recent civil wars.
The hosts meets this revisionist, subversive interpretation with intense skepticism. Modern scholars often attempt to squeeze ancient authors into contemporary political molds. To assume that Vergil was a secret dissident actively undercutting his imperial patron defies historical logic. Following decades of horrific bloodshed, the Pax Augusta was largely celebrated as a golden age. For context, the poet Dante actually placed Brutus and Cassius in the lowest circle of hell alongside Satan because he viewed the establishment of the Roman Empire as a divine, necessary triumph. Perhaps a middle-ground approach would work better: Vergil isn’t necessarily penning a subversive hit piece against Augustus, but he is maturely acknowledging that the founding of an empire is an intrinsically messy, tragic endeavor.
Evander’s Tour and Latin Supines
As Evander leads Aeneas on a walking tour, the rustic king highlights landmarks that will eventually define the heart of the Roman Empire, such as the Capitolium and the Tarpeian Rock. Evander notes that the capital, which is currently gleaming and golden in Vergil’s contemporary era, was once a humble landscape bristling with thickets. This framing effectively grounds the massive architectural wonders of Augustan Rome in the pure, unspoiled simplicity of the mythic golden age.
During this textual analysis, an important corrigendum is issued regarding a grammar mistake from the previous episode. A phrase previously identified as mirabile visu is correctly amended to mirabile dictu (“amazing to say”). This sparks a quick grammatical dive into the mechanics of the Latin supine, a defective fourth-declension noun appearing only in the accusative and ablative cases. Jeff praises the Coen brothers’ film O Brother, Where Art Thou? for accurately incorporating a translated supine when the blind prophet warns the protagonists they will soon see “startlements, wonderful to tell”.
Venus, Vulcan, and the Mythic Reset Button
To fulfill his ultimate destiny in Italy, Aeneas desperately requires divine armor. Following the literary precedent set by Homer, Aeneas’s mother, Venus, approaches the smith god Vulcan to forge the necessary equipment.
This interaction presents a striking contrast to the Iliad, where the sea-nymph Thetis simply cashes in a favor of friendship with Hephaestus to arm Achilles. Here, Venus relies heavily on her feminine wiles to successfully seduce her husband into doing the heavy lifting. The dynamic is inherently comedic and perplexing, particularly because Homer’s Odyssey features a famous tale where Vulcan catches Venus committing flagrant adultery with the war god Mars, trapping the lovers in a magical net.
This apparent continuity error highlights a uniquely classical phenomenon: the “mythic reset button”. Prior to the philosophical rigidity introduced by Plato, the ancient Greeks and Romans rarely demanded strict canonical consistency from their deities. The gods could experience fierce betrayals in one poem and act like a perfectly harmonious couple on the very next page without raising any eyebrows. Consequently, Vulcan eagerly succumbs to his wife’s charms and sets to work crafting a spectacular shield.
The Shield of Aeneas vs. The Shield of Achilles
The creation of the shield serves as an epic ekphrasis—a vivid literary description of a visual work of art, similar to the golden doors of the Florentine Baptistery or the tapestries in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. The face of Aeneas’s shield is heavily embossed with a chronological history of Rome, featuring the wolf nursing Romulus and Remus, the lawless rape of the Sabine women, the attack of the Gauls, and ultimately culminating in the Battle of Actium with Augustus Caesar reigning triumphant in the center.
When comparing this artifact to the legendary Shield of Achilles, the Greek version easily wins the podcast’s favor. Achilles’s shield encompasses the entirety of the human experience, depicting a city at peace, a city at war, agricultural harvests, and joyful wedding dances. Because Achilles is fated to die young, carrying a shield adorned with the ordinary, peaceful life he will never experience adds a profound layer of human tragedy to his character.
Conversely, the Shield of Aeneas feels disappointingly straightforward and functional. It operates less as a window into the hero’s soul and more like a political history textbook. An analogy is drawn to classic vinyl record covers: while the Shield of Achilles resembles the enigmatic, highly evocative prism on Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon, Aeneas’s shield offers exactly what is expected without any surprising nuance, rendering the Trojan hero little more than an action figure carrying the destiny of Rome.
Sponsors: Fueling the Classical Renaissance
Before concluding the episode, immense gratitude is extended to the sponsors keeping the bunker operational.
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- Hackett Publishing: Celebrating over 51 years in the industry, Hackett provides an affordable alternative to exorbitantly priced STEM textbooks. Their expansive catalog includes top-tier humanities resources, including Stanley Lombardo’s beloved, idiomatic translation of the Odyssey. Build your personal library at hackettpublishing.com and use the code AN2023 to receive 20% off plus free shipping.
- MossMethod & LatinPerDiem: Dive deeper into the original texts through, expertly-guided language courses. The Moss Method takes students from neophyte to erudite in ancient Greek, complete with interactive “Moffice Hours” on Friday mornings where students can read about the Shield of Achilles directly from the Iliad. For those wanting to master the Latin language entirely from the ground up (ab initio), check out latinperdiem.com/llpsi to learn via Hans Ørberg’s Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata.
The Gustatory Parting Shot
To officially close out Episode 109, we go for a highly amusing, collegiate-themed Gustatory Parting Shot from Terry Pratchett’s novel Moving Pictures.
The quote features an exchange of academic niceties between a university chair and a dean:
“Have a chocolate-covered raisin,” he said. “They look like rat droppings,” said the chair. The dean peered at them in the gloom. “So that’s it,” he said. “The bag fell on the floor a minute ago and I thought there seemed rather a lot.”
A special thanks goes out to Mishka the sound engineer for her breakneck turnaround time, and to Scott Van Zen and Ken Tamplin for providing the blistering guitar riffs and intro music. Beware the mythological reset buttons, check your snacks carefully, and keep taking in the classics. Valete!
